Silver Linings
by SingerMe
Summary: Happy Thanksgiving.


**Silver Linings**

I don't own these characters. I just like to spend time with them. No other profit to be had.

**(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*L&A*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)**

**Set the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Season 2**

Lee stood outside of Amanda's back door and looked in. She was there, as he'd expected her to be. Her arm was in a sling and the bruise on her forehead was on prominent display. But she was smiling and working away. For several long moments, he stood, just watching her, loving the easy and casual grace with which she moved.

Given his druthers, he'd just as soon stand and watch her, but it was getting colder and it looked like she was finishing up. Seeing no one else in the kitchen with her, he raised a hand and tapped lightly on the window.

Amanda looked up and her smile widened as she snuck a glance back towards the family room and then quickly slipped out of the back door. "Lee!"

"Hey, Amanda." Her smile was infectious and he couldn't help but grin when she stepped outside, despite his concern for her. "I, uh… just came to check on you. Make sure you're alright."

"Ah, thank you, Lee. But I'm fine." She ducked her head for a moment. "I wasn't hurt that bad." She didn't know exactly why, but Lee always had a certain effect on her that just made her blush.

"Wasn't… Amanda, you were too." Lee's grin disappeared to be replaced by anger as he remembered what happened to cause her injuries.

Amanda wasn't even supposed to be with him the previous day. But her car had developed some sort of rattle and Lee had volunteered to give her a ride home after he made a quick stop. All had gone fine until he spotted a known member of the KGB and decided to take a quick detour to follow him, hoping he'd lead the way to even more members. Trailing the man to a less than desirable part of town, he parked his car down the street from the house the man had entered and prepared to wait.

Amanda, though she hadn't complained about the detour at first, began to protest when it looked like Lee was planning on staying there for a while. Jamie had a play at school that night and she didn't want to miss it. But Lee was ignoring her complaints as he intently watched the building, looking for a way in.

Neither of them noticed that they had suddenly become the ones being watched. As Amanda asked Lee how long they would be there and Lee turned to answer, two men snuck up to the back of Lee's car and ordered them from it. Concerned for Amanda's safety, and knowing that, at least temporarily, he was out gunned, Lee complied and told Amanda to do the same.

He hadn't expected things to get so out of hand, as they did.

When he and Amanda exited the car, they were immediately shoved up against it and as one man began to frisk, Lee, releaving him immediately of his gun. Lee tried to remain, calm but this jerk wasn't making it easy. "What do you want?" He demanded. But his assailant ignored him as he again pushed Lee against car. "Shut up." He snarled.

The other man moved in towards, Amanda. "Let's see what you got, sweetheart." He said as he reached for Amanda's blouse. Seeing the look of pure fear, cross her face, Lee knew he had to do something. Quickly, he kicked the man beside him and vaulted across the hood of his car. Shoving away the other man away, Lee grabbed Amanda's arm and they ran.

They had managed to make it a fair distance before their two assailants caught up with them in an alley and ordered them at gunpoint to stop. Frantically looking for any means of escape, and seeing none, Lee finally stopped, pushing Amanda behind him as he turned to face the two maybe robbers. "Alright, hold it!" He called, hoping to stall them until he could find an escape route. "Federal Agents!"

One of the men, tall, balding, with an obvious and ill-fitting toupee and with a large pot belly behind his yellow shirt, looked at his partner with a grin on his face. "Hey, Lennie." He chuckled. "Looks like we got us another fed."

Lennie, shorter but stouter, with a full head of almost white blonde hair joined his partner in the laugh. "Sure does, Tate. What's that make us, huh? Three… no four. With the lady there, that makes four feds we got this week."

Lee cast a puzzled glance back at Amanda before returning his gaze to the two men in front of him. They sure didn't sound like any Russian agents he'd come up against in the past. "What's this all about, huh?" He demanded. Though Tate had already taken his gun, he still wasn't going down without a fight. "What do you two want?"

"That's what we'd like to know." Lennie spoke up. "What were you two doing in that car and why'd you run?"

"You first, pal." Lee snarled as he glanced around again, and finally saw what he needed. Just to their left, the back door of a bakery just opened and an employee began to exit, pushing an empty cart in front of him, headed towards the bakery van parked at the end of the alley.

"Amanda," Lee whispered urgently. "Get back."

As Amanda backed up a step, Lee made a running dive for the cart, wrestling it from the startled baker and shoving it hard at the two men. "Run, Amanda, run!" Lee yelled.

But as usual, she ignored his order and ran to his side, trying valiantly to help him as both of the thugs jumped him. In the ensuing melee, Lee twisted an ankle, and Amanda's shoulder was dislocated, along with numerous bruises and a couple of scrapes, it was clear they had been in a fight.

The two men, Lennie and Tate, however, fared far worse. Lennie, lost two teeth and was pretty sure, after Amanda's well aimed kick, that he'd sing soprano for the rest of his life. Those injuries, along with a busted knee cap, pretty much put him out of action fairly quickly.

Tate proved to a tougher foe and it was his fist that gave Lee his impressive black eye, which had caused him to fall backward and twist his ankle. And it was Tate's shove that caused Amanda to fall backwards and hurt her shoulder as she tried desperately to keep from hitting the concrete face first.

But though he was fierce, he was no competition for Lee and Amanda, even injured as they were. With a kick to the back of his leg from Lee and a hard shove to his middle with the bakery cart from Amanda, he soon folded. His toupee fared far worse as it was ripped from his head and a sudden gust of wind carried it away.

In no time, the two assailants were subdued and tied up and waiting for someone from the Agency to collect them. It wasn't until Francine and two other agents arrived, brakes squealing and motors roaring that it was discovered the complete identities of the Tate and Lennie, who until then hadn't really been able to talk.

They were vice cops who had been staking out an alleged brothel on the same street that Lee and Amanda had been parked on. In fact Lee and Amanda were parked directly in front of the suspect house and the cops had thought they were part of it.

When Lee not only fought them but then he and Amanda ran, they thought they'd caught a hooker and her pimp. The fact that Amanda looked nothing like the other women coming and going from the house and in fact neither she nor Lee had ever been seen there before; slowed the dimwitted cops not at all. Nor did Lee's claim of being an agent. It seemed that quiet a few residents of the house the cops were watching were just that, or at least claimed to be.

Lee and Amanda, of course, had assumed they were part of the Russian mob who were inhabiting the house across and down the street from where they were parked. The fact that the over eager and over confident cops hadn't identified themselves when pulling Lee and Amanda from the car or even when chasing them, hadn't helped.

It took quite a bit of work on Billy's part as well as the police captain to get the mess straightened out to everyone's satisfaction. Well, at least to most everyone. Lee was still angry at the whole mess.

"Amanda." Lee shook his head. "You were too hurt. Your shoulder…"

"Will be just fine." She interrupted him. "And my bruises will heal as will yours."

"But…"

"Lee, honestly. I'm fine, Besides, I am now the coolest mom on the block because of these injuries."

Lee paled. "You didn't tell…"

"Oh, heavens, no." She shook her head. "I told Mother and the boys that I got hurt helping the police catch a purse snatcher. That Captain Burrows, who called me from the police station to apologize for his detectives, kinda helped me convince them and now they think I'm someone special." She beamed.

Lee grinned as he reached out and took her hand, loving the way it felt in his. "You are someone special, Amanda King. You're very special. But I'll tell you, if I could get my hands on those two…"

"Lee." Amanda tugged at his hand. "Please stop. Look, it's over now and I'm fine and you're fine." She paused for a moment thinking about just how fine he was. A woman would have to be blind and stupid not to notice that.

"Besides," she broke her gaze from his body to look up at his face. "I really have a lot to be thankful for as a result of all this."

"Than… thankful?" He arched a brow. "Amanda, you were hurt, pretty badly, I might add. On top of the fact that those two morons thought you were some hooker and then the time it took to straighten this mess out and let's not forget your car and you missed Jaime's play and…"

"Lee," Amanda reached up and gently placed a finger across his lips. "You are looking at it wrong." She almost whispered; her voice a mere shadow in the cold night air. "Yes, I was hurt. You were too. But neither of us were hurt so bad we won't recover fully and look at what else we have to be grateful for."

"What?" He asked, feeling a slight tingle as she took a step closer to him, a tingle, he knew had nothing to do with the cold night air.

She smiled. lighting up the back yard for him. "We proved that even unarmed, that together, we could out best anything and anyone thrown at us. Even the police. And our injuries, bad as they are, did give us a longer Thanksgiving weekend than we expected; not to mention the new image I got from it."

"What about your car?" He questioned, not convinced.

"Well, when my mechanic got into it to find out what the rattle was he found that there was some something called a tie rod end or something like that and it was broken. If I hadn't brought it in when I did, it could've caused me to have a wreck. So see, that little rattle probably saved my life."

Lee still looked dubious. "And uh, what good came of your missing Jaime's play?"

Amanda grinned. "Because I wasn't able to go, Captain Curt offered to go with mom in my place which is something he wouldn't have done otherwise and it ended up making her night. As a matter of fact, he asked her out for Saturday. So, although I missed out, mother didn't and that's more important."

Lee stepped even closer to the beguiling woman in front of him, with a wondrous look on his face. "Amanda King, you are really something else. You know that? You can take any mishap, any problem, and turn it into something good."

"Well," she shrugged, "it's all in how you look at it. I mean, if there's a cloud, see if you can find the silver side of it." She lovingly gazed at his masculine form thinking he was both her biggest cloud and happiest silver lining.

"Uh huh," he gently reached up and brushed a lock of her hair from her shoulder and leaving his hand there for a moment. "In my experience, clouds have been many, but I've not found too many silver linings." _'Except you.'_ He thought.

"Amanda!" Dotty's voice could heard coming towards them.

Lee stepped back like he was shocked. "Well, I... I guess, I'd better go. You... you have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow, okay?"

"I wish I could invite you to join us." Amanda said wistfully.

"Yeah, well, you can't and I..."

"How about if I fix you a plate and bring it to you tomorrow evening?" She asked suddenly, liking the idea of spending at least a little time with him. Then it dawned on her he might have plans with one of his lady friends. "Well, I mean, that is unless you already have plans..."

"No, no." He shook his head with a smile. "No plans other than staying in and watching some football. But you... don't have to do that, Amanda, I mean I can go out to a diner or something."

"You most certainly will not." Amanda shook her head. "You should have a home cooked meal."

"Amanda? Where are you?"

"You'd better get back inside." Lee took a step back near the shadows of her back yard. "But, uh... see you tomorrow?"

"You bet you will." She grinned as he turned and faded away.

"Oh, there you are." Dotty popped her head out of the back door. "Darling, what are you doing out here? It's too cold, isn't it."

"Ah, no, Mother." Amanda ginned thinking of tomorrow. "Not really, besides, I was looking for clouds."

"Clouds?" Dotty looked up into the darkened sky seeing nothing but stars. "Honey, there aren't any clouds out, and even if there were, how could you see them? Why would you want to see them?"

"I wouldn't," Amanda shrugged as she followed her mother into the house. "It's their linings, I was looking for."

The End.


End file.
